a blog about perfume

A lover of scents, Jeni Britton Bauer says she always wanted to be a perfumer. Instead, she opened an ice cream business which has created more than 200 flavors, including osmanthus and blackberry crackle and Bangkok peanut. Yet, her original ambitions are evident when she speaks about her passion for frozen treats.

Today, the fourth entry in our annual series on fragrance related holiday gifts. The subject: miscellaneous scented things that don’t fit into the other categories, including a few scented tea selections. As always, please add any of your own picks in the comments!

From By Kilian in collaboration with Fleur de Mal, a silk kimono featuring lace woven with perfumed threads. The scent— Kilian’s Love, Don’t Be Shy — should last through 4-5 hand washes. $595 at Fleur de Mal, where you can also find the matching scented panties, bra and lace cuffs…

The Art of Flavor: Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food might be as easily shelved with the biography of Winston Churchill in your living room as it is in the kitchen with the cookbooks. The Art of Flavor’s style is more that of a friendly textbook than a compilation of recipes. Don’t come to it for glossy photos of what you hope will be the main course of your next dinner party. Read it for an understanding of how to create the main course yourself.

Mandy Aftel and Daniel Patterson wrote The Art of Flavor. Perfume aficionados already know Aftel as a natural perfumer, author, and founder of Aftelier. A quick glance at the Aftelier website shows Aftel’s interest in food…

A lemming for chocoholics, courtesy of reader Jalapeno: the Haut-Chocolat Calendar of Advent from Vosges. "Prepare for daily enchantment as you count down the days of December in our limited-edition advent box adorned with golden centaurs, unicorns and rabbit kings. Drawers slide open to reveal a morsel of haut-chocolat: caramels, mini exotic chocolate bars, and event happy hedgehogs and magical gnomes! Flip each drawer before replacing it to reveal a hidden design on Christmas Eve." $140.

Mariage Frères Tea Jelly, in Earl Grey Impérial: "Created by the Mariage family in the 19th century, these collection of tea jellies, manufactured in the traditional way in copper pans, are a wonderful accompaniment to toast, brioches and scones. The fruit of this ancestral knowledge, this tea jelly, flavoured with the greatest bergamot, combines its subtlety with the splendour of the best Darjeeling teas." €8.50 for 240g.